Post by acethesupervillain on Jan 12, 2020 20:04:10 GMT
I'm a 3D artist, I've been thinking about making a line of wargaming miniatures for a while, and having recently discovered OPR, I think this is the perfect rules set for me to work in. Since the existing Age of Fantasy and Grimdark Future settings are designed around Warhammer minis, I want to make my own setting for my own models. I'm always disappointed with the usual contorted faced middle aged men of most wargaming model lines, I'm from a background of Animaniacs and JRPGs, and I want to bring something new and different to the world of wargaming. My flagship product, the Acheron Series is a set of 3D models aimed for video game development, that I'd like to use to make 3D printable models. The races of Acheron are varied, but are mostly anthropormorphic humanoid versions of various mythical creatures, like dragons, gryphons and unicorns.
I've got a setting called Planet Sky that I dreamed up for RPGs, and I'd like to convert it wargaming. I'm still a bit of a novice to wargaming, so I'd really appreciate any feedback and advice you've got. Planet Sky is a far off gas giant with a system of floating islands held aloft by Sky's innate magical fields. The many islands of Sky are quite isolated, and have given rise to myriad races. Right now, the people of Sky are waking to an age of exploration. Mass air travel is made possible by the cultivation of Lifthread, a textile with gravity-defying properties. The civilizations of Sky are no longer isolated from each other, and often clash in the sudden exchange of ideals and scramble for new territories and resources that were once the dreams of madmen.
Magic is obviously integral to Planet Sky, but the magic of sky is limited to the permeation of specific natural materials, and cannot be called upon through force of will. So on Sky, you could harvest a Fire Crystal and use it to build a Fire blade or Fire gun, but no amount of practice or study could allow you to cast a fire spell yourself. The races of sky generally have magic in them as well, but they only express whatever powers they are born with. Gryphons might have an affinity for flight and super-strength, dragons might be able to belch flame and venom. There is one exception to this, the Sorceresses. Very rarely, a skyling is born with the ability to tap into the leylines of Sky and cast magic freely. These Sorceresses are always born female, a mystery of the modern world. Some say that it is because the god of magic is female herself, while others claim that the god of magic is male and creates sorceresses so that they might serve him as brides. And there are others who claim that the notion of gods is foolish and primitive, that the power of magic is an unthinking and uncaring natural force that is somehow attuned to the genetic structure of the female. In the modern age of exploration and imperial rivalry, Sorceresses are highly prized and often forced into service, but powerful and crafty Sorceresses often find ways to escape, and often hold grudges against the people who dared to control them.
All "technology" on Sky is magic in nature. Flying ships are held aloft by Lifthread and propelled by Wind Crystals. Guns and cannons are not powered by black powder and bullets, but by infused magic. Because magic is infused throughout the natural world, and magical power is often expressed very differently across the islands of Sky, there is a high impetus for the empires of the world to seek out new natural wonders and to claim and study them before their rivals.
There are no humans on Sky, at least not yet. If humans ever arrive on Sky, it will be through some portal or space route from their native planet, Earth.
There are over 40 races in the Acheron Series, and I'd love to get around to all of them, but for now, Kitsune, Raptors and Devilish have been my highest selling models, so I figure they're a good place to start. For now, I'm just going to post the default pictures so you can get a sense of what they look like. I want to have a firmer sense of what I'm making before I start the models.
As part of my personal type of nerdiness, I'd rather stick to "genuine mythology" whenever I can rather than make things up out of convenience. So any fact about these races I want to base on some sort of existing myth or legend rather than make things up. Although I'm not opposed to creative interpretation for the sake of game balance or better storytelling.
I guess I'm a long way away from anything concrete, but I want to share my ideas so far.
We mostly hear about Kitsune from anime and video games, and there's a lot of false information surrounding them, so I want to clear it up first. In their genuine mythology, Kitsune simply means "fox" and actually refers to flesh and blood foxes as well as several varieties of enchanted creatures. The most common Kitsune are the Zenko and Yako, two sides of the same coin, Zenko use their powers for good, while Yako use their powers out of malice. Both enjoy meddling and mischief, but Zenko will do so only to punish the wicked, while Yako will do so out of boredom. According to legend, as a flesh and blood fox gets older, it starts to master the art of magic. Its tails split, and its fur turns white or gold. At the age of 1000 years, they reach their ultimate final form, the Kyuubi-no-Kitsune (nine tailed fox) or Tenko (heavenly/god-like fox). On their path to Tenko, kitsune gain various powers that remind me of classic psionics, including clairvoyance, pyrokinesis, electrokinesis, causing confusion or madness in their victims, possession or mind-control and more rarely, vampirism, typically stealing life-force rather than blood. But of course, their most famous ability is shapeshifting, typically shapeshifting into human form. In most stories, they gain their first magical ability, shapeshifting, after reaching the age of 100. By then they are basically bored out of their minds with being a woodland creature so they shapeshift into human form because they are curious to explore human cities and human culture. Young kitsune are vain, and often shapeshift into very attractive forms, especially attractive women, though more mature kitsune will often pretend to be old people and judge people on how they treat the elderly.
Fun Fact, while we in the West are generally exposed to the Kitsune through Japanese mythology, the idea originates from China with the Huli-Jing. The Huli-Jing is not stratified into good and bad, but any individual may turn out to be good or bad depending on their own inclination. There is a legend of a particularly evil Huli-Jing who possessed the body of princess Daji and engaged in behavior that would make a Drukhari blush. There is also a Korean version, the "Kumiho".
Another type of Kitsune is the Ninko, which is more like a ghost creature. Ninko have a different set of skills than the Tenko, so if there's some Kitsune power that you think I'm missing, there's a possibility that it's a Ninko power. Since Tenko have plenty to work with, I would probably ignore the Ninko for simplicity. However, since some Ninko were servants of sorcerers who did their biddings in secret, the Ninko could be a power of Kitsune Sorceresses, or there could be a specially trained "Ninko" ninja division that carries out the will of the Kitsune Emperor.
So okay, now to turn that into a working wargaming race. The Zenko/Yako would make for a cool Light/Dark thing, like High Elves/Dark Elves or Eldar/Drukhari. I'm especially pleased by that, since in genuine mythology, there isn't a strong case for Light and Dark elves, and since Kitsune are by far my most popular Acheron Series race, it would give an excuse to do more with them. I think the Zenko could represent the main political state for the Kitsune, while the Yako could be some sort of shadow society, like a secret ninja order or maybe even modeled on the yakuza. In general, the idea of the Yako is not that they are necessarily "evil", but lack self-control or empathy.
The average kitsune citizen should not have access to the wide range of psionic powers that Tenko are said to possess, but these could be examples of the powers of Kitsune Sorceresses. Since one of the powers of Tenko is immortality, I could imagine that a small group of ageless Kitsune Sorceresses end up slowly gaining control of the nation. To mimic historical Japan, maybe the Kitsune emperor is non-sorceress, but a particularly powerful Sorceress becomes the Shogun, and ends up being the true ruler. The Yako could be founded by another sorceress who tried to seize control and got banished. I could see the average Kitsune still having a shred of the Tenko's psionic clairvoyance. They might have a heightened sense when detecting magic or psionic energy.
Actually, the vampirism power seems like the most do-able for a wargaming setting. Maybe Kitsune who express vampirism get some sort of bonus when they kill an enemy, or when they make physical contact with an enemy. Maybe the Yako use vampirism while the Zenko lack or suppress this ability.
Based on their mythology, I would say that the Kitsune sound like a race that would try to avoid direct conflict when possible, preferring diplomacy or covert operations. To me, this means Ninja. The Kitsune empire's most elite troops are probably Ninja divisions, sneaking and stabbing their way to victory for the Kitsune empire. With Yako, I think they could get a bit more violent, they might be less stealthy and more stabby than their Zenko relatives.
Although shape-shifting is integral to the myth of the Kitsune, I don't really see a point to it in a wargame. In an RPG, a bunch of ninjas who can shape-shift for the sake of sneaking into an enemy compound would be hugely advantageous. I think it would maybe have to be a product of technology rather than an innate ability. In the Kitsune mythology, they sometimes have to use a leaf as a material component to the shapeshifting spell, so maybe there's a special tree that grows in Kitsune territory that has the magical ability to shift shape. There's also the idea that shapeshifting could be a psionic ability to change someone else's perception of you rather than shift shape yourself. They could also just be masters of disguise, so good that other empires think that they can shapeshift.
I originally thought of Raptors (or Raptor-folk or Raptorans or whatever) as a cooler replacement for Lizard-folk. It's a little rough to compare this flesh and blood creature to something as wildly OP as the Tenko, but I think I can make do. The truth is, a lot of our "beliefs" about raptors have been debunked by science so there's actually a sort of modern mythology about raptors that is as fictional as dragons and unicorns.
So Sky's Raptor race will be based on the mythical idea of the "perfect predator", a creature so well adapted that only a catastrophic asteroid impact could knock them out. Raptor "powers" can include enhanced speed and reflexes, enhanced senses, especially sight and smell, razor sharp claws and teeth that make them deadly in melee, even when unarmed. Raptors have strong, but lightweight bones and aerodynamic plumage, which allow them to jump larger distances and fall safely. Their claws and lightweight build make them proficient climbers, able to scale walls or obstacles with incredible ease.
Raptors' bird-like throats give them an incredible vocal range, they are even able to mimic sounds and voices that they have heard with perfect accuracy. Raptor language is an incredibly complicated bird-song, where even pitch and tempo can change the meaning of sounds. In conversation, Raptors often include mimicry of sounds that they have heard, for example, a Raptor recounting his tails of battle, will like throw in the sounds of his blaster gun or the wailing death cries of the enemy he has slain. In battle, Raptors can use their vocal prowess to encode their own communications and mimic the voices of their opponents to confuse their prey.
For Raptor society, it will be very reminiscent of the Hirogen from Star Trek Voyager. I loved the Hirogen, and I was disappointed that they didn't do a whole lot with them.
The Raptors are an incredibly ancient society that has gone through many cycles of boom and bust, enlightenment and barbarism. Ancient Raptor empires were able to master crude means of flight and explore the islands around them to gain riches and technology unparalleled for their time. But right now, their society is embracing its primordial savagery. No sensation is more glorious than the instinctive revelry of the kill. The great magics of the empires of the past have only been a way to enhance the hunt. And now, with the spread of Lifthread, the new age of exploration has brought new prey right to their doors, and opened new hunting grounds all over Sky. Raptors consider sentient prey to be the greatest of game, and often consume the flesh of their kills in combat, or keep gruesome trophies to show off.
Nonetheless, Raptors are still an intelligent and organized race, and they realize that picking too many fights with too many opponents would lead to the destruction of their kind. As hunters, they are careful about choosing their prey. Raptor hunters often operate as pirates or mercenaries to get their fill of violence without inciting large scale war. Raptor attitudes toward hunting and violence can vary. The zeitgeist of their culture promotes the instinctual elation of the predator. For some Raptors, any kill is enough, but for others, fair and honorable combat is necessary to feel the satisfaction. Some even craft elaborate scenarios to make their hunts a work of art.
I'm not sure what powers might be native to Raptor Sorceresses. I sometimes associate dinosaurs with the feathered serpent god, Quetzalcoatl, who also had power over the wind. So Raptor Sorceresses might have the power to harness wind, both as a destructive force, but also in the context of navigation and sailing through sky. Raptors would have a more innate understanding of aerodynamics so they have a much more developed magic of flight than other races. I'm not sure to what extent Raptors would use guns. It seems like they are built to sink their teeth and claws into their prey, but they also have enhanced vision and reflexes, which would be very beneficial for shooting. One thought is that if they are in tune with the magic of wind and flight and the history of the hunt, maybe their "guns" actually launch projectiles like javelins, arrows and darts (whereas a "normal" gun in this universe would be shooting a fireball or ice beam). Raptors who prefer melee might be able to deploy "wind shields" which create updrafts or other air currents that misdirect shots.
I have absolutely no idea what to do with the Devilish. Any mythology about creatures like this is generally to do with the cosmology of the afterlife, and that's a weird thing to translate into a world of flying islands. I also don't like the idea of "evil" races, I think that's stupid, but I don't mind cultures that have a completely alien morality. So, they shouldn't think that what they are doing is evil. That said, Red from Overly Sarcastic Productions did a great talk about the appeal of Pure Evil Villains, and I do agree with her.
What I could maybe do is a very power hungry culture that is hell bent (sorry) on conquering all of Sky through force or schemery. The devilish believe that it's a dog-eat-dog world, and if they don't conquer everyone else, some other culture will conquer the devilish. (and it's a wargame, so they're probably right) Devilish are happy to get along with other races, as long as they perceive themselves to have the upper hand in the relationship; they don't want extermination, they just want to win. I always liked the Eastern idea of a bureaucratic afterlife, so I think that internally, the Devilish are obsessed with rank and nobility, and constantly scheme against each other to reach the upper rungs of society. They are perpetually discontent, seeking for ever greater power, wealth and fame, but also take great pride in their achieves. Basically, they're an exaggeration of that aspect of humankind.
The Devilish engage in various levels of debauchery. Devilish nobility flaunt their power with wild hedonism. Devilish warlords will often take slaves, torture prisoners and engage in living sacrifices to drive fear and desperation into their enemies. To them, it is the right of the strong to do as they please to the weak.
The Devilish are highly religious, believing in a pantheon of demon gods, possibly based on the 7 sins, Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony and Lust. In the age of exploration, many cultures are challenging their ancient beliefs and questioning the existence of gods, but the Devilish cling to their beliefs, mainly as a political cudgel. It separates them and elevates their culture compared to the foreign heathens they conquer, and offers a field of competition in internal power struggles.
Devilish sorceresses and magic technology utilize fire, disintegration and pain. Devilish pain sticks trigger their victims' pain receptors without doing any real damage, perfect for torturing prisoners or capturing slaves. When Devilish truly want to frighten their foes, they use disintegration magic, turning their targets into dust. Devilish are also fond of charm and mind control magic, either as part of their hedonistic rituals or to gain the upper hand in internal power struggles or in non-violent schemes against foreign powers.
That's it for now, more to come. I think that these races are more roguish, so next time, I'll pick a few that are more tank-like.
Once I feel like I've got a balanced world to start in, I'll start designing some models. Please let me know what you think.
I've got a setting called Planet Sky that I dreamed up for RPGs, and I'd like to convert it wargaming. I'm still a bit of a novice to wargaming, so I'd really appreciate any feedback and advice you've got. Planet Sky is a far off gas giant with a system of floating islands held aloft by Sky's innate magical fields. The many islands of Sky are quite isolated, and have given rise to myriad races. Right now, the people of Sky are waking to an age of exploration. Mass air travel is made possible by the cultivation of Lifthread, a textile with gravity-defying properties. The civilizations of Sky are no longer isolated from each other, and often clash in the sudden exchange of ideals and scramble for new territories and resources that were once the dreams of madmen.
Magic is obviously integral to Planet Sky, but the magic of sky is limited to the permeation of specific natural materials, and cannot be called upon through force of will. So on Sky, you could harvest a Fire Crystal and use it to build a Fire blade or Fire gun, but no amount of practice or study could allow you to cast a fire spell yourself. The races of sky generally have magic in them as well, but they only express whatever powers they are born with. Gryphons might have an affinity for flight and super-strength, dragons might be able to belch flame and venom. There is one exception to this, the Sorceresses. Very rarely, a skyling is born with the ability to tap into the leylines of Sky and cast magic freely. These Sorceresses are always born female, a mystery of the modern world. Some say that it is because the god of magic is female herself, while others claim that the god of magic is male and creates sorceresses so that they might serve him as brides. And there are others who claim that the notion of gods is foolish and primitive, that the power of magic is an unthinking and uncaring natural force that is somehow attuned to the genetic structure of the female. In the modern age of exploration and imperial rivalry, Sorceresses are highly prized and often forced into service, but powerful and crafty Sorceresses often find ways to escape, and often hold grudges against the people who dared to control them.
All "technology" on Sky is magic in nature. Flying ships are held aloft by Lifthread and propelled by Wind Crystals. Guns and cannons are not powered by black powder and bullets, but by infused magic. Because magic is infused throughout the natural world, and magical power is often expressed very differently across the islands of Sky, there is a high impetus for the empires of the world to seek out new natural wonders and to claim and study them before their rivals.
There are no humans on Sky, at least not yet. If humans ever arrive on Sky, it will be through some portal or space route from their native planet, Earth.
There are over 40 races in the Acheron Series, and I'd love to get around to all of them, but for now, Kitsune, Raptors and Devilish have been my highest selling models, so I figure they're a good place to start. For now, I'm just going to post the default pictures so you can get a sense of what they look like. I want to have a firmer sense of what I'm making before I start the models.
As part of my personal type of nerdiness, I'd rather stick to "genuine mythology" whenever I can rather than make things up out of convenience. So any fact about these races I want to base on some sort of existing myth or legend rather than make things up. Although I'm not opposed to creative interpretation for the sake of game balance or better storytelling.
I guess I'm a long way away from anything concrete, but I want to share my ideas so far.
We mostly hear about Kitsune from anime and video games, and there's a lot of false information surrounding them, so I want to clear it up first. In their genuine mythology, Kitsune simply means "fox" and actually refers to flesh and blood foxes as well as several varieties of enchanted creatures. The most common Kitsune are the Zenko and Yako, two sides of the same coin, Zenko use their powers for good, while Yako use their powers out of malice. Both enjoy meddling and mischief, but Zenko will do so only to punish the wicked, while Yako will do so out of boredom. According to legend, as a flesh and blood fox gets older, it starts to master the art of magic. Its tails split, and its fur turns white or gold. At the age of 1000 years, they reach their ultimate final form, the Kyuubi-no-Kitsune (nine tailed fox) or Tenko (heavenly/god-like fox). On their path to Tenko, kitsune gain various powers that remind me of classic psionics, including clairvoyance, pyrokinesis, electrokinesis, causing confusion or madness in their victims, possession or mind-control and more rarely, vampirism, typically stealing life-force rather than blood. But of course, their most famous ability is shapeshifting, typically shapeshifting into human form. In most stories, they gain their first magical ability, shapeshifting, after reaching the age of 100. By then they are basically bored out of their minds with being a woodland creature so they shapeshift into human form because they are curious to explore human cities and human culture. Young kitsune are vain, and often shapeshift into very attractive forms, especially attractive women, though more mature kitsune will often pretend to be old people and judge people on how they treat the elderly.
Fun Fact, while we in the West are generally exposed to the Kitsune through Japanese mythology, the idea originates from China with the Huli-Jing. The Huli-Jing is not stratified into good and bad, but any individual may turn out to be good or bad depending on their own inclination. There is a legend of a particularly evil Huli-Jing who possessed the body of princess Daji and engaged in behavior that would make a Drukhari blush. There is also a Korean version, the "Kumiho".
Another type of Kitsune is the Ninko, which is more like a ghost creature. Ninko have a different set of skills than the Tenko, so if there's some Kitsune power that you think I'm missing, there's a possibility that it's a Ninko power. Since Tenko have plenty to work with, I would probably ignore the Ninko for simplicity. However, since some Ninko were servants of sorcerers who did their biddings in secret, the Ninko could be a power of Kitsune Sorceresses, or there could be a specially trained "Ninko" ninja division that carries out the will of the Kitsune Emperor.
So okay, now to turn that into a working wargaming race. The Zenko/Yako would make for a cool Light/Dark thing, like High Elves/Dark Elves or Eldar/Drukhari. I'm especially pleased by that, since in genuine mythology, there isn't a strong case for Light and Dark elves, and since Kitsune are by far my most popular Acheron Series race, it would give an excuse to do more with them. I think the Zenko could represent the main political state for the Kitsune, while the Yako could be some sort of shadow society, like a secret ninja order or maybe even modeled on the yakuza. In general, the idea of the Yako is not that they are necessarily "evil", but lack self-control or empathy.
The average kitsune citizen should not have access to the wide range of psionic powers that Tenko are said to possess, but these could be examples of the powers of Kitsune Sorceresses. Since one of the powers of Tenko is immortality, I could imagine that a small group of ageless Kitsune Sorceresses end up slowly gaining control of the nation. To mimic historical Japan, maybe the Kitsune emperor is non-sorceress, but a particularly powerful Sorceress becomes the Shogun, and ends up being the true ruler. The Yako could be founded by another sorceress who tried to seize control and got banished. I could see the average Kitsune still having a shred of the Tenko's psionic clairvoyance. They might have a heightened sense when detecting magic or psionic energy.
Actually, the vampirism power seems like the most do-able for a wargaming setting. Maybe Kitsune who express vampirism get some sort of bonus when they kill an enemy, or when they make physical contact with an enemy. Maybe the Yako use vampirism while the Zenko lack or suppress this ability.
Based on their mythology, I would say that the Kitsune sound like a race that would try to avoid direct conflict when possible, preferring diplomacy or covert operations. To me, this means Ninja. The Kitsune empire's most elite troops are probably Ninja divisions, sneaking and stabbing their way to victory for the Kitsune empire. With Yako, I think they could get a bit more violent, they might be less stealthy and more stabby than their Zenko relatives.
Although shape-shifting is integral to the myth of the Kitsune, I don't really see a point to it in a wargame. In an RPG, a bunch of ninjas who can shape-shift for the sake of sneaking into an enemy compound would be hugely advantageous. I think it would maybe have to be a product of technology rather than an innate ability. In the Kitsune mythology, they sometimes have to use a leaf as a material component to the shapeshifting spell, so maybe there's a special tree that grows in Kitsune territory that has the magical ability to shift shape. There's also the idea that shapeshifting could be a psionic ability to change someone else's perception of you rather than shift shape yourself. They could also just be masters of disguise, so good that other empires think that they can shapeshift.
I originally thought of Raptors (or Raptor-folk or Raptorans or whatever) as a cooler replacement for Lizard-folk. It's a little rough to compare this flesh and blood creature to something as wildly OP as the Tenko, but I think I can make do. The truth is, a lot of our "beliefs" about raptors have been debunked by science so there's actually a sort of modern mythology about raptors that is as fictional as dragons and unicorns.
So Sky's Raptor race will be based on the mythical idea of the "perfect predator", a creature so well adapted that only a catastrophic asteroid impact could knock them out. Raptor "powers" can include enhanced speed and reflexes, enhanced senses, especially sight and smell, razor sharp claws and teeth that make them deadly in melee, even when unarmed. Raptors have strong, but lightweight bones and aerodynamic plumage, which allow them to jump larger distances and fall safely. Their claws and lightweight build make them proficient climbers, able to scale walls or obstacles with incredible ease.
Raptors' bird-like throats give them an incredible vocal range, they are even able to mimic sounds and voices that they have heard with perfect accuracy. Raptor language is an incredibly complicated bird-song, where even pitch and tempo can change the meaning of sounds. In conversation, Raptors often include mimicry of sounds that they have heard, for example, a Raptor recounting his tails of battle, will like throw in the sounds of his blaster gun or the wailing death cries of the enemy he has slain. In battle, Raptors can use their vocal prowess to encode their own communications and mimic the voices of their opponents to confuse their prey.
For Raptor society, it will be very reminiscent of the Hirogen from Star Trek Voyager. I loved the Hirogen, and I was disappointed that they didn't do a whole lot with them.
The Raptors are an incredibly ancient society that has gone through many cycles of boom and bust, enlightenment and barbarism. Ancient Raptor empires were able to master crude means of flight and explore the islands around them to gain riches and technology unparalleled for their time. But right now, their society is embracing its primordial savagery. No sensation is more glorious than the instinctive revelry of the kill. The great magics of the empires of the past have only been a way to enhance the hunt. And now, with the spread of Lifthread, the new age of exploration has brought new prey right to their doors, and opened new hunting grounds all over Sky. Raptors consider sentient prey to be the greatest of game, and often consume the flesh of their kills in combat, or keep gruesome trophies to show off.
Nonetheless, Raptors are still an intelligent and organized race, and they realize that picking too many fights with too many opponents would lead to the destruction of their kind. As hunters, they are careful about choosing their prey. Raptor hunters often operate as pirates or mercenaries to get their fill of violence without inciting large scale war. Raptor attitudes toward hunting and violence can vary. The zeitgeist of their culture promotes the instinctual elation of the predator. For some Raptors, any kill is enough, but for others, fair and honorable combat is necessary to feel the satisfaction. Some even craft elaborate scenarios to make their hunts a work of art.
I'm not sure what powers might be native to Raptor Sorceresses. I sometimes associate dinosaurs with the feathered serpent god, Quetzalcoatl, who also had power over the wind. So Raptor Sorceresses might have the power to harness wind, both as a destructive force, but also in the context of navigation and sailing through sky. Raptors would have a more innate understanding of aerodynamics so they have a much more developed magic of flight than other races. I'm not sure to what extent Raptors would use guns. It seems like they are built to sink their teeth and claws into their prey, but they also have enhanced vision and reflexes, which would be very beneficial for shooting. One thought is that if they are in tune with the magic of wind and flight and the history of the hunt, maybe their "guns" actually launch projectiles like javelins, arrows and darts (whereas a "normal" gun in this universe would be shooting a fireball or ice beam). Raptors who prefer melee might be able to deploy "wind shields" which create updrafts or other air currents that misdirect shots.
I have absolutely no idea what to do with the Devilish. Any mythology about creatures like this is generally to do with the cosmology of the afterlife, and that's a weird thing to translate into a world of flying islands. I also don't like the idea of "evil" races, I think that's stupid, but I don't mind cultures that have a completely alien morality. So, they shouldn't think that what they are doing is evil. That said, Red from Overly Sarcastic Productions did a great talk about the appeal of Pure Evil Villains, and I do agree with her.
What I could maybe do is a very power hungry culture that is hell bent (sorry) on conquering all of Sky through force or schemery. The devilish believe that it's a dog-eat-dog world, and if they don't conquer everyone else, some other culture will conquer the devilish. (and it's a wargame, so they're probably right) Devilish are happy to get along with other races, as long as they perceive themselves to have the upper hand in the relationship; they don't want extermination, they just want to win. I always liked the Eastern idea of a bureaucratic afterlife, so I think that internally, the Devilish are obsessed with rank and nobility, and constantly scheme against each other to reach the upper rungs of society. They are perpetually discontent, seeking for ever greater power, wealth and fame, but also take great pride in their achieves. Basically, they're an exaggeration of that aspect of humankind.
The Devilish engage in various levels of debauchery. Devilish nobility flaunt their power with wild hedonism. Devilish warlords will often take slaves, torture prisoners and engage in living sacrifices to drive fear and desperation into their enemies. To them, it is the right of the strong to do as they please to the weak.
The Devilish are highly religious, believing in a pantheon of demon gods, possibly based on the 7 sins, Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony and Lust. In the age of exploration, many cultures are challenging their ancient beliefs and questioning the existence of gods, but the Devilish cling to their beliefs, mainly as a political cudgel. It separates them and elevates their culture compared to the foreign heathens they conquer, and offers a field of competition in internal power struggles.
Devilish sorceresses and magic technology utilize fire, disintegration and pain. Devilish pain sticks trigger their victims' pain receptors without doing any real damage, perfect for torturing prisoners or capturing slaves. When Devilish truly want to frighten their foes, they use disintegration magic, turning their targets into dust. Devilish are also fond of charm and mind control magic, either as part of their hedonistic rituals or to gain the upper hand in internal power struggles or in non-violent schemes against foreign powers.
That's it for now, more to come. I think that these races are more roguish, so next time, I'll pick a few that are more tank-like.
Once I feel like I've got a balanced world to start in, I'll start designing some models. Please let me know what you think.
